


What's Romance

by agoodwoman



Series: Revival [8]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 11:57:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5333252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agoodwoman/pseuds/agoodwoman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One shot, not edited.</p><p>I was having a chat with notapenlight and I said a few things</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's Romance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notapenlight](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=notapenlight).



After being overlooked by him for this big thing in their relationship for so many years, being second to his passion for the answers, Scully's heart does not waver but feels curious. When Tad comes along she feels slightly amused. His slick words, expensive suits, chilled champagne in the back of heated limos and considerations towards her are only appreciated for a moment by Dana Scully because those aren't the things that sweep a woman like her off her feet. 

She appreciates being seen as a woman but she's more than that. She's chased the truth with a man for seven years in a Ford Taurus. Romance to her means sunflower seeds from his pocket, ice tea in a bag and gifts that mean nothing because all he could ever give her that she really wanted were answers. It means looking at someone and knowing that they know your heart and your mind completely.

Tad is an unknown and he sparks her curious mind however she can also see right through the veneer and persona of a man in the media. He's a blip on the radar at best.

When she thinks of romance she's looking for the feeling of a conversation on a rock with the moon overhead after a rental boat sinks from Big Blue or a prehistorical sized alligator. The jury was still out on that one. It means coming home to a bottle of her favourite wine, take out ordered from the good Thai place and a foot massage for the overworked doctor. 

Dana Scully does not want or need the extravagances that Tad O'Malley offers. That's all he knows how to charm women with. he can't listen to long stories about childhood memories because he won't connect the names and faces that have passed on or what their deaths meant. He wouldn't understand why Scully refers to Melissa in the past tense because she doesn't explain to anyone how or when she died. She never goes into that loss because men showing a passing interest don't get to hear that story. She doesn't discuss losing her father thirty years too soon because only Mulder would understand what that meant during her lifetime. It's too personal and private of a story for Scully and she doesn't share that over a bottle of $250 champagne. Especially since Mulder feels responsible for half of those instances and she knows that discussing that could possibly depict him in a bad light.

For Mulder, the only woman who could give him romance would be a brand new bag of seeds, cold oj from the fridge and pizza from his favourite place. The only place that puts the mushrooms under the pepperoni and the only person who might understand why you might have an aversion to looking at, but not tasting, a fungus after it tried to eat you.

Romance to Mulder means staring up at active skies, looking for more than what he's been told is out there with someone who is willing to keep looking with him.

No one else can be that spark for them, be inside their minds and know what has happened over the last twenty years. She wanted to escape from it, she wanted to be someone else with a different past but changing her location doesn't change who they are. It's what makes her sad but also what comforts her when she feels lost.

He's been hers since Oregon 1993. They've belonged to one another for more years than not by this point. Her heart always will belong to him and that fact gives Mulder hope.


End file.
